


Color My World

by callmeonetrack



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Crushes, F/M, Friendship, Schmoop, Teen Angst, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 12:26:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9384995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmeonetrack/pseuds/callmeonetrack
Summary: Teen Kara asks her BFF Lee for help dying her hair blue.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Blue](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/257564) by Winegums. 



Underneath a midnight sky, Kara climbs to the stars. At 16, she’s already convinced that someday she’ll be up there too, flying among them.  But tonight her destination is a bit closer to the ground.

Limb by limb, she scrambles up the large oak and edges out onto the thick branch that extends almost all the way to Lee’s bathroom. She can hear music coming from the house, hard-driving drums and heavy bass chords—Zak’s no doubt. Kara knocks hard, hoping the inner door to his room isn’t shut and that he’ll still hear it over the noise. She’s waited long enough.

Impatient, Kara reaches out and snags a flower by the stem. She sits and idly tears the petals away. _He loves me…he loves me not…he loves me…he loves me not…he—_

A squeak and the window pushes open, Lee’s dark head poking out. The half-plucked flower flutters forgotten to the ground as Kara grabs the plastic bag she brought and thrusts it at Lee before scooting forward and swinging a leg over the windowsill.  She levers herself in, but her back foot gets caught on the sill and she nearly falls forward, but Lee’s reflexes are quick. He tosses the bag on the counter and reaches out and grabs her hips to steady her.

“Hey!” He’s staring at her in surprise—staring _down_ at her, which is new. Lee’s finally outgrown her, even if it’s just by a few inches. His teeth look brighter too, with his face all tan like that.

“Hey.”  She grins, so hard her cheeks hurt. “Welcome back, loser.”

“Nice to see you too, moron.” But he pulls her into a tight hug, and Kara’s eyes close, a soft sigh escaping when she takes a breath. It’s been three months but he still smells the same.

But soon enough he’s letting her go, and stepping back, shoving his hands in his pockets. Off-balance for a second, Kara sinks down on the windowsill. 

“What are you doing here?” Lee asks..

“What? You take off for Tauron for three months and suddenly I need an engraved invitation to come over?”

“No, of course not! But we just got home a few hours ago,” he shrugs, “and it’s past midnight...”

“Yeah, I had to wait till momma was asleep.” Lee frowns, a worry line wrinkling his brow, so she rushes on, “I need your help.”

He blinks and his tanned face loses some of its color, so she shakes her head quickly. “No! Just open the bag, dipstick.” Still frowning, he does, then his eyes go wide. “I’d do it myself but I tried last month and ended up looking like an Oreo cookie.”

Lee drops the bag and just stares at the tap until Kara punches his shoulder.  "Kara, are you nuts? We've got to be back at school in two days, and you want me to help you dye your hair blue?!"

It takes her a good ten minutes to convince him, and another five for him to sneak downstairs and grab a pair of dishwashing gloves from the kitchen. But soon enough she’s contorted into an awkward backbend, her head barely fitting under the low tap. Lee’s hip is pressed to hers as he bends over her, ridiculously huge yellow rubber gloves on, and the dye packet poised over her head.

“Your hair got long,” he says. A beat. “You’re sure about this?”

“Gods, yes, would you get on with it before I get a hernia!” 

But Lee pauses again. “You could get expelled. Lose your pyramid scholarship…”

“I won’t! Headmistress Moira loves me.” She snorts and rolls her eyes. “Besides, I checked the handbook, okay? It only says no unnatural hair colors and blue is totally natural. The sky is blue.” 

Lee raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Yeah, well I don’t think-” he squints at the package again, “ _Bad Boy Blue_ really qualifies as natural.” 

Kara waves a hand in the air. “Semantics, Leland.” Her back hurts and she’s tired of waiting, always waiting. So Kara shoots her hand out, closes her fingers around his and squeezes. A bright stream of liquid arcs out spattering the crown of her head. 

“Kara!”   
“Just getting you started. Now quit overthinking and get to it, will ya?

He stifles a sigh, and squirts more of the dye in, then starts to rub the color through her hair with his fingers. Kara closes her eyes. It tickles, but the headrub feels good. She hums a little noise of approval.

Above her, Lee noisily clears his throat. “So, uh, why the sudden urge for neon hair anyway?”

Her shoulders lift in a lopsided shrug. “It’s a new year. Figure it’s time for a change.” Kara opens her eyes to find Lee staring down at her, his face close. His fingers stop moving and their eyes lock and hold. He really does have the prettiest eyes, and suddenly her mouth is volunteering its own opinion. “Besides, blue’s my favorite color.”

Those eyes widen and a flush colors his cheeks. Lee shifts, his weight pressing against her hips and thighs, and Kara has to drag in air. His eyes drop to her lips as they part and she inhales, her stomach brushing against Lee’s. For a second, she is positive he’s leaning closer, and Kara forgets the crick in her back, and her mother’s temper, and the eternity of this summer, when it only took her best friend being halfway across the solar system for her to realize how completely _not friendly_ she felt about Lee after all. 

He breathes too, and she can feel the warmth against her face and lips, he’s so close. And just as Kara decides she can’t wait any longer and shifts to close the gap, his brow furrows and he pulls back, straightening, stripping off the now-stained dishwashing gloves. “You’re done.”

Kara blinks, and twists to stand, one hand rubbing at her lower back. She knows she’s not imagining things. There was something there. Something decidedly _unfriendly._ He had to have felt it too. Disoriented and disappointed, she was rooting around in search of an old towel and almost missed Lee’s question.   
“So where’s Anders tonight, anyway? Why aren’t you at his place playing hairdresser?”

The question surprises her, but there’s a definite crankiness in Lee’s voice. Is that jealousy? Kara can’t help grinning a bit into the dark recesses of the linen closet. 

She’d met Sam Anders when his Delphi Destroyers had played the Athena Avengers in last spring’s intercolony pyramid playoffs. Kara had thought he was cute and fun, and he liked pyramid as much as she did. Even better, he’d liked her and didn’t hesitate to act on it. They’d gone out for a few weeks at the beginning of the summer, but Kara had realized after a while that whatever she felt for him wasn’t quite enough to stop her brain from wandering five planets away when they were together.

“I dunno,” Kara says, as she searches in vain. All the closet holds is pristine, fluffy white ones. “Sam and I are just friends.”

Lee was gathering the dye packet and box and shoving it all into the plastic bag. “Really?” His tone held cool disbelief. “Because the last time I saw him, you seemed to be trying to swallow the guy’s tonsils in front of our lockers.”

She gave up her search, and just plucked the nearest towel off its neatly stacked pile, before shutting the door and turning back to Lee.   
“Didn’t realize you had such a photographic memory, Lee.” 

“Yeah well, it was pretty memorable. I couldn’t get my history book, and the teacher gave me detention for being late to class.”

Oops. 

“Whatever. We broke up months ago.” Kara shook out the towel and started to lift it to her head. 

“You did?” Lee says, eyebrows raised, then he shouts, “WAIT! Don’t!” He grabs the towel, yanking it out of her hand. “You can’t use this. My mom will kill me if it gets all stained.”

Kara sighs. “Well, what am I supposed to use? The dye’s running down my neck.”

Lee looks at her blankly for a minute and then crosses his arm and strips his white t-shirt off and hands it over. “Here. It’s old and I’ll just toss it. I have a ton, so she won’t notice.”

Kara hears none of it. She’s too busy staring at his chest, which suddenly has way more muscles than she remembers. Lee has an actual six-pack. “Whoa. Where’d those come from?”

His cheeks color and Lee mumbles something about farm chores and baling a lot of hay. And suddenly she’s picturing him just like this, tanned and half-naked, but really sweaty from manual labor, and Kara’s the one who’s flushing. 

She bends over, so at least there’s an excuse for all the blood rushing to her face, and wraps the shirt around it like a turban, tucking the warm fabric in so that the short sleeves flap like ears on either side. She straightens up and holds her hands out as she grins at Lee. “Am I sexy, or what?”

He shakes his head, smirking. “You’re beyond insane is what you are.”

It’s a familiar refrain. “It’s okay,” she says, nudging his shoulder. “You can admit it, Leland. I know that when Sister Corinne makes us write that inevitable _Things I Did on My Summer Vacation_ essay, yours is going to start with: _Got super bored without Kara around_.”  

“Ha! You mean _Got some peace and quiet for once without Kara around_?

She scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Peace and quiet are seriously overrated.”

“How would you know?” Lee laughs. 

“Hey, not all of us got an all expenses paid trip off this dirtball of a planet for the summer.” He sobers instantly, his brow creasing, and Kara curses her brain’s lack of a filter and starts talking again before he can ask any more questions. “C’mon, get your triad deck and you can tell me all about what kind of fun you had with farm animals at Grandpa Joe’s.”

He looks for a minute like he might protest but then Lee just throws an arm over her shoulders and says, “You know there was this donkey who reminded me a little bit  of you.” And reaches up and tugs on one of the shirt sleeves, as Kara lifts her foot and attempts to kick him in the ass. 

Lee makes it through all of six triad hands before he starts yawning almost continuously. “I fold. I’m beat.” 

“Aw, come on. The night’s young. And I was on a winning streak!”

“You’re always on a winning streak and it’s two in the morning. And some of us spent most of the day on an interplanetary shuttle, so-” He pauses, a faintly guilty look creeping across his face like he shouldn’t have said that. “Let’s go to sleep.”

Suddenly, Kara is inexplicably nervous. She’s snuck over but never stayed the whole night at Lee’s before. She climbs off the bed and stands there, just watching as Lee pulls back the covers and plops down, then looks over at her expectantly. 

She walks around the footboard and sits down slowly, but doesn’t lay back. Kara gestures at the pillow. “What if the dye bleeds through?”

“Oh, yeah” Lee says.  “Hmm.” He frowns for a second, then flings an arm out and reaches across to pat his shoulder. “Well, maybe you can just, like, lay on me.” He blushes as he says it. “So the sheets don’t get stained.” 

Kara’s pulse hammers in her throat suddenly, but she scoots lower on the bed, and leans back, tilting a little, so her head rests against Lee’s bicep. He shifts, stretching to hit the switch, and then the lights go off and the darkness settles around them. It’s silent and awkward and Kara’s acutely aware of every swell of Lee’s bare chest against her neck and shoulder as he breathes. But after a moment or two, the slight motion and the warmth of his skin start to lull her towards sleep. 

“Kara?”

“Yeah?”

“Was your summer that— I mean, how – _how_ was your summer?”

She’s not sure how to answer that, and it takes a minute before she finally just says, “Long. Really long.” Kara takes a breath, mustering some courage. “I’m glad you’re home.” 

Lee’s arm curls a little around her shoulders, almost like a hug. “I missed you.”

In the dark, Kara smiles. “I missed you too.”


End file.
